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Katharine Hepburn in Christopher Strong

Posted on 5th February 2015

As the BFI celebrates the unconventional Hollywood diva
Katharine Hepburn with a series of films and talks, we too took
this opportunity and went along to pay homage.

Oh Katharine, your lanky walk, your stomping feet and your moth
outfit! Let us say this again, your moth outfit! The 1933 black and
white film Christopher Strong can be said to be many things in
terms of cinematography/direction etc etc, but for us that was
hardly the point. We instantaneously fell in love with Katharine in
a metallic moth gown comprising of
antennae as well! We had to!There is the love of vintage, but there is also the love
of old costumes. Ah, the details, the glamour, the precious floaty
fabrics. Old school Hollywood characters wore the best of gowns
even when, in theory, most of us would have been in their pjs at
best (at best!!!).

We also admired the iconic jodhpurs that you,
Katharine, wore in one of the following scenes more or less when
your character Lady Cynthia Darrington, had decided to fly across
the whole world (in a plane, and not as a moth - that was just a
costume) to overcome heartache (don't we all do that?). For this
was the woman that Lady Cynthia stood for: an independent,
ambitious woman who tells her man, from the very beginning that he
won't be able to control her life and desire to fly (as an
aviatrix, not as a moth).

Of course the film had a tragic end and the main character is
killed, and the plot was a little old-fashioned, some have said and
rightly so, anti-feminist in its message too. But you can't have
everything and this old classic is definitely worth a watch, and if
the moth costume is not enough to sell it to you, choose from a
much larger selection being showed at the BFI throughout this
February and March and we're sure you won't be disappointed.

We left the cinema's most comfortable seats wondering about the
title though, surely it should have been called, Cynthia
Darrington, sigh.